[planigan]

dixierat, hi. I have used different guns/irons but I find that having a 40-80w irons for regular work and a 90w old fashion tin smith/plumber type for heavy chassis work does it for me. The 40W is a radio shack job, 60W weller type pencil and the 90w has a 1/2 diameter copper tip. For circuit board work I think the pencil type is best as it is slim and will get in tight spaces and more accurate to touch small area also components not large and don't draw off heat rapidly. The 90 is an elephant used for soldering directly to chassis mainly. The big tip holds a lot of heat and can off-set the rapid dissipation of heat caused by the mass of the chassis, something your not usually faced with in modern electronics. It is also good when you have a heat sensitive part to solder as on smaller masses it heats the immediate area rapidly before the heat has a chance to travels. I think that if you are going to do a lot of soldering for the forseeable future (and have the money) a good soldering station with temp controls and idle is a good route to go. The one thing that eats up the tips is remaining hot with no load to dissipate heat and therefore it heats and eats itself. You can help a little by making sure you keep a blob of solder on tip when idling but then you waste solder. I still plug it in , wait, work, yank the plug. PL